The Message Behind Daughters and Overprotective Dads

[jimhines]

Long before my daughter began dating, I had guys joking about how I should greet her prospective boyfriends. Sitting in the living room cleaning a shotgun was a popular idea. People who knew me a little better suggested I should sharpen one of the swords instead.

I also have a teenage son. Funny thing — not once has anyone suggested that when he brings home a prospective girlfriend, I should greet her with shotgun and/or sword in hand.

Heteronormative assumptions about my kids aside, the idea that I’d have to intimidate a girl into not taking advantage of my son seems absurd on the surface, right? But when it comes to our daughters, we’re flooded with “jokes” about how we have to use implicit threats of violence to keep the boys in line.

I keep getting into arguments where guys tell me sexism isn’t a thing anymore. That girls are just as violent and abusive as boys. That there’s no epidemic of rape and violence carried out by men and boys against women and girls.

Often in the same paragraph, these guys will talk about the horrible violence they’d inflict on anyone who raped or abused their daughters. Not once have I seen them express the same protectiveness about their sons.

It quickly becomes clear what they really believe. They know, deep down, that the threat of sexual violence against their daughters is real. That girls and women are disproportionately targeted. That one of the biggest threats to women — if not the biggest threat — is men.

This is not to say that men and boys aren’t assaulted as well. They are, and it happens far too often. Likewise, women absolutely can be abusers. But statistically, women are far more likely to be attacked, and men are far more likely to be the attackers.

And every time I hear someone joking about getting the guns out to greet the daughter’s new boy, I hear someone who knows how bad things are for girls and women in this society. Even if they don’t want to admit it.

Mirrored from Jim C. Hines.

Comments

[swan_tower]

Yes -- but I think that's only half the story.

The other half is the underlying assumption that men "own" the sexuality of women. You're not just cleaning that shotgun because the guy might be a threat to your daughter; you're doing it because he's a threat to your ownership of your daughter. He needs to win your approval before rights to her can be passed along to him.

This is why I'm so past being done with the "funny" trope of overprotective fathers. It's a not very humorous mask over the idea that it's a father's job to police his daughter's sexuality, to be the gatekeeper on who gets to spread her legs. You see this even when the guy in question doesn't seem to present a threat of sexual assault -- it's the mere fact that Another Male Is Sniffing Around His Possession.

That entire set of behaviors can die in a fire.

[jimhines]

There are definitely more layers to it. (And most of those layers are garbage.) "Ownership" of your daughter is absolutely one of those. Another is the assumption that boys can never be victims, and the expectation for boys to be "strong" and solve their own problems without ever needing help.

So much dumpster fire...

[twistedchick]

This reaction by fathers also tends to infantilize women, making it clear that that they are not considered equals, adults, able to take care of themselves and make their own decisions. It's sexist, misogynist and endlessly disabling.

[lokifan]

This is a really good point I hadn't considered. I'd only thought about swan_tower's "possessiveness" angle before, or the notion that the only reason women have sex is when men 'corrupt'/push them into it - which of course connects to your point. The imagining of men and women as predator and prey has so many layers of yuck.